To determine whether or not to perform various methods in actionListener interface methods (actionPerformed() blocks of code) use setActionCommand() on source components (combo1 or combo2).
For your example, before adding elements to combo2, call setActionCommand("doNothing") and guard your comboBoxActionPerformed() method.
Here's a compilable example that uses this principle to have one combo set another combo's selected index while also displaying a String in a JTextField. By using setActionCommand() and guarding the comboActionPerformed() block of code, the JTextField will cycle through each word in the wordBank. If the comboActionPerformed() method was not guarded or if the actionCommand String was not changed, 2 actionEvents will trigger and the textField will skip words.
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
/** @author PianoKiddo */
public class CoolCombos extends JPanel {
JComboBox<String> candyCombo;
JComboBox<String> flavorCombo;
JTextField field;
String[] wordBank;
int i = 0;
CoolCombos() {
super();
initComponents();
addComponentsToPanel();
}
private void initComponents() {
initCombos();
initTextField();
}
private void initCombos() {
ActionListener comboListener = new ActionListener() {
@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
comboActionPerformed(e);
}
};
String[] candyList = {"Sourpatch", "Skittles"};
String[] flavorList = {"Watermelon", "Original"};
candyCombo = new JComboBox<>(candyList);
candyCombo.addActionListener(comboListener);
flavorCombo = new JComboBox<>(flavorList);
flavorCombo.addActionListener(comboListener);
}
private void initTextField() {
wordBank = new String[]{"Which", "Do", "You", "Like", "Better?"};
field = new JTextField("xxxxx");
field.setEditable(false);
field.setText(wordBank[i]);
}
private void addComponentsToPanel() {
this.setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
this.add(candyCombo);
this.add(flavorCombo);
this.add(field);
}
public void comboActionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
String command = e.getActionCommand();
if (!command.equals("doNothing")) {
JComboBox combo = (JComboBox) e.getSource();
if (combo.equals(candyCombo)) {
setOtherComboIndex(candyCombo, flavorCombo); }
else {
setOtherComboIndex(flavorCombo, candyCombo); }
displayText(); //replace here for toDo() code
}
}
private void setOtherComboIndex(JComboBox combo, JComboBox otherCombo) {
String command = otherCombo.getActionCommand();
otherCombo.setActionCommand("doNothing"); //comment this line to skip words.
otherCombo.setSelectedIndex(combo.getSelectedIndex());
otherCombo.setActionCommand(command);
}
private void displayText() {
i++;
String word;
if (i > 4) { i = 0; }
word = wordBank[i];
field.setText(word);
this.repaint();
}
/**
* Create the GUI and show it. For thread safety,
* this method should be invoked from the
* event-dispatching thread.
*/
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
//Create and set up the window.
JFrame frame = new JFrame("CoolCombos");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//Create and set up the content pane.
JComponent newContentPane = new CoolCombos();
newContentPane.setOpaque(true); //content panes must be opaque
frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
//Display the window.
frame.pack();
frame.setMinimumSize(frame.getSize());
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
//creating and showing this application's GUI.
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
}
